As a conventional camera control device, a surveillance device comprised of a single camera is generally operated using a console. More specifically, an operation lever provided on the console is moved from side to side and up and down, the shooting direction of the camera is thereby controlled from side to side and up and down, and a zoom/wide button similarly provided on the console is pushed to vary the shooting magnification.
In recent years, as a wide-area surveillance device comprised of a plurality of cameras, surveillance devices have appeared which have a graphical user interface (GUI) enabling easy management of the cameras.
The GUI for placing graphics representing installations of cameras on a map and displaying it in association with shot images has an advantage of enabling a user to control a surveillance device easily without the need of specific knowledge.
For example, Patent Document 1 describes a surveillance device which has the GUI, selects an operation target camera from a plurality of cameras by operation of a mouse, and operates the camera by operation of the console. The operation method of the conventional surveillance device as described in Patent Document 1 will briefly be described below with reference to FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration example of the conventional surveillance device. The surveillance device has display screen 1, mouse 3 used in selecting an operation target camera, and console 5 used in operating the operation target camera. Display screen 1 has display window 10 that displays an image shot by a camera, and map window 20 that indicates a 2C shooting position of the camera.
When an operation target camera is selected from a plurality of (herein, three) cameras, among camera icons 22, 24 and 26 representing installation positions of the cameras displayed in map window 20, a camera icon to operate (for example, camera icon 22) undergoes operation 30 (so-called drag and drop) of dragging and dropping the icon onto one (for example, image display area 16) of image display areas 12, 14, 16 and 18 in image window 10. By this means, an image shot by the camera represented by camera icon 22 is displayed in image display area 16 that is a destination of the drag and drop operation. Such operation enables display of an image shot by any one of the cameras.
Further, when performing camera operation, by single-clicking image display area 16 displaying an image shot by the operation target camera, the operation target camera can be selected, and further, by operating console 5, it is possible to vary the shooting direction and shooting magnification of the operation target camera.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-136515 (pages 5-6, FIG. 5)